Lark
Not very famous in WayHaven, Elric Amari, or Lark, is the "kingpin" of crime in South America. However, he recently decided to come back to WayHaven, his hometown, for reasons unknown. With his arrival, things look grim, is there really enough room for two "kingpins" in one city? Already corrupted by crime everywhere, will WayHaven and its heroes survive another calamity like Lark? Personality His personality is a tad twisted accentuated by his lack of fear and morals. Despite his childish and playful demeanor, he is also extremely violent and highly disturbed. He usually describes his killing methods to be clean, without needless movements, a skill he takes pride in. Because of his lack of emotional understanding, he is willing to confront any opponent head-on, no matter how dangerous they are. This can prove to be disastrous if he wasn't also calculative, cunning and shrewd. He calls himself the definition of pure evil. While it is believed that he is a psychopath, that is not true. He feels emotion, and the definition of psychopathy is that a person feels no emotion whatsoever. His emotion may be sick humor, or anger, and occasional sadness when one of his plans doesn’t go right, but he does feel genuine emotion. But even with his insanity, the fact is that he is a brilliant criminal mind. He is not only able to think up complicated schemes very quickly, and set up all the necessary tools to get these plans going, but he can also adjust them very quickly when he needs to, as he often does since heroes are actively messing them up. Another sign of his brilliant mind is that he doesn’t rely on a single way of getting the job done. He uses multiple methods, such as elaborate traps, explosives, guns, anything that is on-hand, or that he cleverly has hidden on his person. Lark is crazy, yes, but he's crazy like a fox. He is a tactical genius, able to mastermind extremely complex plans. What makes him so formidable is his brilliance combined with an utter disregard for morality. Everyone is afraid of him, and rightly so. As far as thugs go, some of them work for him because they know he's crazy, but he also has a better track record of success than most villains. Plus, sometimes he'll get minions who are just obsessed with him, so they're easy to use. Resources Having amassed as well as forcefully acquired the wealth of multiple crime syndicates across Africa, Asia, and South America, Lark is not just a wealthy mafia don or an affluent drug lord but is the name rumored to control any a significant amount of money that circulates in these circles. Despite this not being his primary aim, Elric knows that those who possess wealth possess power and those who possess power can do whatever they please. Abilities Quirk Blood-work Lark is able to manipulate his own blood on a cellular level controlling its properties from density and length to even temperature, speed, and rate of coagulation. The quirk requires he often create incisions on his skin and as a result, he is scarred and usually looks pale and emaciated due to blood loss. His tolerance of the pain associated with using his quirk is a learned skill. He is able to clot his wounds with ease and inhuman speeds (enhanced healing factor). The more he cuts a wound/the more blood he loses and the harder it is to clot but the stronger his moves become. Biological weaknesses such as blurry vision, however, hamper his quirk's strength as he loses more, reducing the accuracy of his attacks significantly over long ranges. His cell network is completely composed of stem cells and specialized blood cells allowing him to reattach severed body parts (he cannot yet completely re-grow severed/lost body parts but he's working on it.).The more damage, the longer it takes. He is also able to sense the blood of others within a 50m radius distinctly telling different blood signatures apart. This is especially handy for reconnaissance and tracking, when necessary. To manipulate his blood, there has to be a strand of it still connected to his wounds. These strands can be as thin as .5 mm thick and at his peak, near microscopic. With increased offensive ability (strength and range) his regenerative abilities reduce due to excess blood use. The reverse is also the case for increased regenerative ability. After losing a certain amount of blood, he goes berserk, completely irrational, lacking in accuracy and without coagulation until he passes out. His quirk ensures he is able to produce blood at an inhuman rate, working his enhanced bone marrows to their limit resulting in him constantly bleeding no matter how lean he gets and how much blood he loses. His blood-works react and move at a speed of 1250 feet per second (around 850mph), half the speed of an average bullet. They can be hardened to possess the same density as refined steel and stretched like spider webs with the tensile strength of carbon steel (840Mpa). Before combat, his blood volume is the same as that of an average adult (1.5 gallons) but he is able to rapidly produce up to 10 gallons (38 liters) of blood (without reabsorption, nobody can absorb that much blood without bursting like a balloon) in combat before his marrows reach their limit. He can raise his blood temperature to its boiling point (blood boils at the same temperature as water) and can separate his blood from any and all impurities even on a microscopic level ensuring its absolute purity at all times. Visible effects of quirk use on Lark include: 1. Dry, White, Messy hair (formally blonde) 2. Red, Bloodshot eyes 3. Pulsating Veins on his Neck and Hands 4. Cold, white skin and an emaciated, bony look whenever he overexerts himself. His quirk requires that he eat a lot whenever he can to replenish himself. After long periods of not using his abilities, his skin regains its color and he puts on a bit of weight (his normal body weight), all the other effects are permanent Equipment/Weaponry Knives - Lark is well known for using a variety of knives, blades, and anything sharp enough to puncture flesh even potato peelers. Guns- Rifles, AKs, and handheld pistols. Elric has an assortment of guns even larger than his collection of blades. His favorites, however, are his .44 magnum handguns he always keeps on him, fastened to his body by shoulder gun holsters. Grenades in Coat - Lark's coat contains a variety of grenades and explosives which can be triggered by pulling a string. Specialization Elric is an expert marksman having been on the trigger since he was 10. He is skilled in certain levels of gun kata and will often prefer to go down this route in combat whenever he can. He is just as skilled with throwing knives albeit only resorting to this when absolutely necessary. Versatility Blood work can be used as anything from extra hands to shields and blades. It comes in handy when combatting multiple foes and is well balanced in both attack and defense. It also is very handy when feigning death. Examples and Versatility: Haemokinetic constructs: He is able to form various constructs out of his own blood. This is a very versatile ability, as he is able to overcome a lot of obstacles that would otherwise be impossible. Blood mimicry/Blood transformation: He can transform his flesh into a blood-like physiology. He can stay in this form for 10 minutes, using double his normal blood volume limit of 10 gallons to both retain the form and attack targets. In this temporary form, he cannot be cut. Thermovariance: The power to vary the temperature of his own blood from cold congealing temperature to absolute boiling point. Haemopotent regeneration: Regeneration of Blood. Blood Clotting: Ability to clot blood at will, allowing faster healing. History Beware the pale bleeding man that monitors ceaslessly, governing all from a shrouded nest - driven by blood and coin. He knows when you sleep - he knows when you're weak. Let not a word of him escape your mouth, for by sunrise he'll have your head! Elric's father, Amari, had gotten involved with the wrong people while trying to raise enough money to buy a house. The local triads had offered him a loan which they knew he could never repay. They decreed that his 12-year-old son would be a better payment than anything he could muster at the time, and thus Lark spent his childhood and early adult life in slavery. Sold from master to master, he would eventually come to settle in Southeast Africa where he was forced to fight for his life in an underground gladiator arena for young boys only referred to as Doodseun (loosely translated as "dead boy"). Although he was enslaved, his at the time innocuous natural ability to coagulate his blood and heal minor cuts and bruises along with his unlikely friendship with a fellow slave boy, "Beast" Musa, allowed him to develop extraordinary skills within the prison's walls. He read as many books as he could get his hands on, spent most of his spare time bodybuilding in the prison's gym, developed his own form of meditation that involved inflicting excruciating pain on himself, and learned to fight in the merciless school of Doodseun life. Because of the cultural and geographical location of his prison, Elric knew how to speak Afrikaans, Swahili, Kikuyu, Luganda, Oromo, English, Spanish, Portuguese and French (he later learned Spanish, Mandarin, Japanese, Korean and a host of other languages relevant to his line of work). Despite his circumstances, he found teachers of various sorts during his incarceration, ranging from hardened gang men put in charge of them to an elderly priest who held masses for them at a local dilapidated church on Sundays in the hopes of saving the young men's souls. Under the priest's tutelage, he received a classical education. He had amassed an impressive kill count by his 15th birthday, having survived three years of death battles occurring three times a week. He committed his first murder at twelve just after he joined, stabbing a boy in the ring who was about to deliver the finishing blow on him. This was when he began to utilize his quirk as he now believes it was always meant to be used. Being the only caucasian amongst his fellow slaves, and a pale one at that due to his quirk, he soon earned the moniker Bleek Duiwel (translated as "pale devil") - a name that would strike fear into the hearts of all those around him during the duration of his captivity in Africa. His reputation exceeded him, inspiring fear amongst the fellow contestants, who'd rather receive gruesome punishment than to fight Elric, but troubled the showrunners. Not financially (bets on Elric made easy money, even when fighting more than one opponent), but the lack of participants made it hard to host a fight. In the end, other slaves went as far as to commit suicide in order not to fight him. He was shortly sold afterward. During his years in prison, he became scarred not just from the usage of his quirk, but from the numerous beatings, torments, and punishments of the wardens as well - whose jobs were to watch over them. It was also hard to maintain high standards with his quirk as he was barely fed enough. The number of tattoos on his skin also grew. At first, they were marks from his slave-drivers as a sign of ownership but then they became his own obsession with murder as he got one for every battle he fought. Later, he began donning red markings running down his eyes which he explained as indicating his true emotions despite his ever-grinning face. His new master was a Portuguese merchant in Peru who dealt in spices, skins, and children among other things. He treated the boy much better than his previous masters, providing food shelter and ample clothing. Lark was even given the freedom to roam the farms and yards and only fought on occasions when his master had any large stakes bet. In captivity here, he got to meet Rin. She was a Japanese slave girl from the Order of Tatsujin-an elite group of underground assassins of the highest standards Elric had come to learn a lot about in his slavery. She had been bought as a baby by their master and handed over to the Order to be trained for the sole purpose of competing in this global ring of abominable violence. Having established a bond akin to that of siblings, they both conspired against their owner and slaughtered the entire household in one night; women, children, maids, and servants as well. Lark carried a teddy bear he called "Ursinho" ("Little Bear" in Portuguese) given to him by his mother, whom he considered his only friend. Ursinho had a hole in his back to hold a knife that Lark used in the massacre of his captors that night. Lark ultimately established himself as the "kingpin" of crime in South America from whence he increased his reach with the help of friends recruited on his return to the African continent where he gained the cognomen, L (from Elric) and his favorite one, Lark. In no time, he increased in notoriety. The uncanny, sociopathic and violent nature of the pale devil had spread all across Asia, Africa, and the Americas. A poem was even created as a reminder of the all-seeing eyes of this fierce demon. Soon, having gained the satisfaction of plunder, wealth, fear and power, he yearned to return to his home to share his experiences with his people. The people of his dearly beloved city of WayHaven have to know...Lark has returned!